Biden and the US stand alone against Palestinian statehood

[GMantis]

1. Israel did not engage in massive ethnic cleansing; see above. Nor did it engage in any definition of terrorism comparable to Hamas, ISIS, or Al Qaeda.

You did not provide any evidence that Israel didn't carry out massive ethnic cleansing. Not that of course there's any evidence, since no one but pro-Israeli propagandists would deny this. This includes Israeli historians. Especially Benny Morris, who's far from a liberal since he criticized David Ben-Gurion  for not expelling all Palestians. Israeli archives also indicate that direct or indirect actions were the most important factors in the mass flight. For this reason and also due to the many reports of atrocities by Israeli forces against Palestinians these archives are now top secret. But even if the Israeli narrative was true, by refusing the return of the Palestinians after the 1948 war ended, they most certainly committed ethnic cleansing.

2. Self-determination is a well established right, and if Palestinians were willing to renounce violence against Israel I would support them in establishing their own state, as would Benjamin Netanyahu, Gantz, and many others. But that is not the case, nor are the sentiments of more than 90% of a population merely a reflection of "some Palestinians."

Precisely because self-determination is a well established right, it can't be denied due to violent actions of some Palestinians (let alone of dubious claims of mass Palestinian support for them). Plenty of other peoples have committed even greater atrocities in their fight for liberation and hardly anyone (certainly not the US, as they have demonstrated many times) thinks that they should be denied self-determination for this reason. This of course includes Israel which is far worse than the Palestinians, being built on ethnic cleansing. It should furthermore be pointed out that blaming Jews as a whole for the actions of some Jews is considered an obvious example of anti-semitism. Why is doing exactly the same to Palestinians justified?

3. There's little reason to think Israel wouldn't, particularly if this occurred in 10-15 years. For example, the annexation of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights both included citizenship grants to the Arabs living there.

This is why Israel isn't going to annex the Palestinian territories and will try to continue maintain the status quo which leaves them with de-facto control of Palestine but with none of the rights due to citizens of Israel for the Palestinians.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

1. Israel did not engage in massive ethnic cleansing; see above. Nor did it engage in any definition of terrorism comparable to Hamas, ISIS, or Al Qaeda.

You did not provide any evidence that Israel didn't carry out massive ethnic cleansing. Not that of course there's any evidence, since no one but pro-Israeli propagandists would deny this. This includes Israeli historians. Especially Benny Morris, who's far from a liberal since he criticized David Ben-Gurion  for not expelling all Palestians. Israeli archives also indicate that direct or indirect actions were the most important factors in the mass flight. For this reason and also due to the many reports of atrocities by Israeli forces against Palestinians these archives are now top secret. But even if the Israeli narrative was true, by refusing the return of the Palestinians after the 1948 war ended, they most certainly committed ethnic cleansing.

2. Self-determination is a well established right, and if Palestinians were willing to renounce violence against Israel I would support them in establishing their own state, as would Benjamin Netanyahu, Gantz, and many others. But that is not the case, nor are the sentiments of more than 90% of a population merely a reflection of "some Palestinians."

Precisely because self-determination is a well established right, it can't be denied due to violent actions of some Palestinians (let alone of dubious claims of mass Palestinian support for them). Plenty of other peoples have committed even greater atrocities in their fight for liberation and hardly anyone (certainly not the US, as they have demonstrated many times) thinks that they should be denied self-determination for this reason. This of course includes Israel which is far worse than the Palestinians, being built on ethnic cleansing. It should furthermore be pointed out that blaming Jews as a whole for the actions of some Jews is considered an obvious example of anti-semitism. Why is doing exactly the same to Palestinians justified?

3. There's little reason to think Israel wouldn't, particularly if this occurred in 10-15 years. For example, the annexation of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights both included citizenship grants to the Arabs living there.

This is why Israel isn't going to annex the Palestinian territories and will try to continue maintain the status quo which leaves them with de-facto control of Palestine but with none of the rights due to citizens of Israel for the Palestinians.

1. I mean, I didn't because the burden of proof is on the claim-makers to prove the claim, not the claim-deniers to disprove it, barring rare exceptions? But I'm glad to provide some pretty basic empirical analysis: after the 1948 war, hundreds of thousands of Arabs remained within Israeli territory, while not a single Jew remained in Judea and Samaria/Gaza. Compare that to actual examples of successful ethnic cleansing (the removal of Germans from the Sudetenland/Western Poland, the removal of Greeks from Turkey, etc) and that seems on its face to both definitely refute claims of massive ethnic cleansing and probably indicate against claims of substantial ethnic cleansing whatsoever. Heck, it's pretty abnormal even for cases of non-forced flight: when the Armenians fled NK, for example, almost all left, so it is in the scheme of things a pretty profound indicator of the tolerance that Arab-Israelis knew they could expect under Israeli sovereignty that so many chose to remain.

As for the rest of your first point, this is a well trod historical debate. Benny Morris is definitely a liberal: he has co-signed letters calling Israeli occupation "apartheid," and while he has now adopted a relatively unique "It happened but it was good" stance he definitely did not come to that stance originally and he remains on the left today. Again, the burden of proof lies on the claimants. It is not accepted that Israeli archives support the Nakba claims: as the article you link to itself notes, actual expulsion orders were listed as merely the 6th most important factor (out of 11) in explaining Arab flight, after factors such as psychological operations, Arab orders and proximity to conflict, and were limited to unique circumstances, such as Lod, where the IDF ordered Arab inhabitants to leave after (having surrendered the previous day) they opened fire and attacked Israeli soldiers in breach of prior agreement, and even then only because of Lod's strategic location and the inability of the IDF to hold the city otherwise.

As to your final point, it is not true that refusing the return of those who have voluntarily fled (continuing your hypothetical) constitutes ethnic cleansing. For example, Croatia has not allowed Serbs who fled following Operation Storm to return, but no one, not even the Serbian government, has argued that this is ethnic cleansing: there is some debate over whether Operation Storm itself did, but no one disputes that if the Serbs voluntarily fled it was not ethnic cleansing to block their return.

2. Sure it can. Also, those claims are in no way dubious, but that's besides the point. Bosnia-Herzegovina has for decades denied Serbs self-determination under the justification of national security with the full support of the international community (including the US): this is widely accepted because, like in Israel, it is accepted that Serb self-determination could lead to genocide within the Serb areas and could threaten Bosnian national security. In my view, this is actually pretty unjustifiable: I don't think there's much reason to think the Serbs would commit genocide within their territories, let alone attack Bosnia proper, but that only strengthens the point vis a vis Israel, because it suggests that even if Israel were not reasonably concerned (as it is) about Palestinian attacks on Israel itself, it would still have the right to deny self-determination if it was afraid that an independent Palestinian state would expel Israeli settlers.

You are right that it would be unjustified bigotry to blame all Palestinians for the actions of militants, which is why I don't, and why most supporters of Israel don't. But it's reasonable to note that on a continuum of popular support for terrorism ranging from Northern Irish Catholic support for the IRA to Democratic support for the Weathermen, Palestinian support for Hamas is much closer (if not exceeding) to the former than the latter. More importantly, it is reasonable to note that every single major Palestinian political faction supports genocide against Jews in Judea and Samaria, and that most openly support further attacks upon Israel even after establishing a state (and probably all, depending on your belief in Fatah's honesty.)

3. Israel will probably one day annex the West Bank for the same reason it has annexed Jerusalem and the Golan Heights: to bind them into the Israeli state and make it impossible for a future government (probably a left wing one, but not necessarily: Sharon was a right winger) or difficult for an international coalition to force Israel to cede the territory.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

1. Yep, hence why Yahya Sinwar isn't a rapist. He is responsible for rape as the leader of a rapist gang that he encouraged in rape, to be sure, but he's not a rapist.

3. The label terrorism here hides more than it reveals. The Israelis blew up the King David Hotel because it was the British Mandate's Central Office and thus a legitimate target. They placed a call before to let the British know, but the warning call to the hotel itself was ignored. (The ones to the French consulate and Palestine Post were not, saving lives and showing the seriousness of these calls.) The Israelis can't be blamed for attacking a legitimate military target because that target chose not to act on their warning. Similarly, Israeli attacks on British soldiers made sure not to attack civilians. Was there collateral damage? Of course. But on a continum ranging from the francs-tireurs to Hamas, the Israelis were squarely in the francs-tireur tier.

You're clearly holding Irgun and Hamas to different standards; you're practically acting like a lawyer for the former while blaming the latter for crimes it never committed.

If I were to do the same for Hamas, I could just as easily say that Sinwar has never "encouraged rape". That in fact Hamas has denounced rape as "un-Islamic conduct", that on October 7th their actual targets were legitimate military bases, that they generally didn't just rape and slaughter everyone they saw because their civilian-combatant ratio was around 2-1 and was actually better than the ratio of the "world's most moral army" in Gaza. Certainly Hamas has used tactics more brutal than those of Irgun but they're also facing an enemy that's far more brutal than the British authorities of Mandatory Palestine ever were.
/snip

2. The documentary costs $3 to purchase, so you'll have to forgive me for doubting the subtitles of a video titled "Israeli War Criminals Laughing - Tantura (2022 Documentary)." More broadly, though, I don't doubt that at least one rape happened. That kind of thing is unfortunately hard to avoid in war. What I doubt is that the Israelis ever engaged endorsed rape as Hamas has done or even engaged in ethnic cleansing. And I really doubt that 92 year old men (at the youngest, presuming no child soldiers) from a first world country would laugh about rape on camera.

Clearly you've never seen the interviews of Nazi war criminals. Regardless, the evidence of the Tantura massacre is pretty overwhelming at this point and whether you doubt it or not is as relevant as whether someone doubts whether a wealthy, first world country would really try to wipe out the Jews. Also, again, when has Hamas "endorsed rape"?

4. That wasn't my point in sharing, but sure, why not? It is a lie to say that there was no Arab leadership in 1948: Syria, Jordan, and Egypt were all independent countries with strong leadership and in one case even a competent army. More importantly, there was the Arab Higher Committee, which had been the de facto leadership of Palestinian Arabs for the last 30 years, and which repeatedly spread false rumors such as those of rape at Deir Yassin (which I notice you have, without acknowledging that you were wrong on rape there, dropped) in an attempt to encourage Arabs to flee for self-interested, political reasons. I'm well aware of the Israeli New Historians: they are wrong and "new" for a reason.

/snip

5. Your language re: Morris is really funny because you are implying he was a Zionist who accepted the New Historians points, when it is in fact the opposite: Benny Morris was a New Historian who became a Zionist after the failure of the 2000 peace process. Citing him as an example of how even "arch-Zionists" are coming around to the New Historians doesn't make any sense because he was a New Historian before he was an arch-Zionist.*

*He's still a peacenik who signs letters calling the Israeli presence in the West Bank apartheid, so he's not really an arch-Zionist at all. He is in the unique camp of saying that expulsion happened but was good, though.

/snip

Good, terrorism shouldn’t be rewarded with statehood. They can wait longer until everyone understands terrorism isn’t acceptable.

Frankly, there should never be Palestinian statehood. Palestinians should accept equal rights under Israeli sovereignty, excluding Gaza, which can be an independent city-state after it promises not to attack Israel.

Thankfully, the people of Palestine, and the rest of world, don't care for the opinions of some bloodthirsty teenager, and will continue the struggle for self-determination.

The people of Palestine already achieved independence partially in 1948 and fully in 1967, returning the region from its colonial name to its native name of Israel.

Nowadays, there are some antisemites wishing to revive the colonial "Palestine" name and ensure Jews are never able to live safely in their homeland– they have already ensured that no Jews are able to live in some regions like the Gaza Strip. It's an absolute travesty that the world isn't united in condemning this movement.

/snip

Separately, wanted to say that I just saw this. I don't have time to reply right now but I intend to respond and am not ignoring it: it simply slipped my notice. I appreciate the detailed reply.

[GMantis]

1. I mean, I didn't because the burden of proof is on the claim-makers to prove the claim, not the claim-deniers to disprove it, barring rare exceptions? But I'm glad to provide some pretty basic empirical analysis: after the 1948 war, hundreds of thousands of Arabs remained within Israeli territory, while not a single Jew remained in Judea and Samaria/Gaza. Compare that to actual examples of successful ethnic cleansing (the removal of Germans from the Sudetenland/Western Poland, the removal of Greeks from Turkey, etc) and that seems on its face to both definitely refute claims of massive ethnic cleansing and probably indicate against claims of substantial ethnic cleansing whatsoever. Heck, it's pretty abnormal even for cases of non-forced flight: when the Armenians fled NK, for example, almost all left, so it is in the scheme of things a pretty profound indicator of the tolerance that Arab-Israelis knew they could expect under Israeli sovereignty that so many chose to remain.

Not all Greeks were expelled from Turkey either and even the expulsion from the Sudetenland wasn't absolute. This doesn't change the fact that the object in both cases was the maximum reduction of the enemy ethnicity. As it was of course the case in Palestine where the Zionist leadership had been agitating for removing the Arabs for nearly thirty years. That due to specific circumstances not all Palestinians fled or were expelled doesn't change the big picture. Especially when some remained despite Israel wanting them gone - for example, Israel allowed the return of a number of Christian Palestinians under the pressure of the Catholic Church.

As for the rest of your first point, this is a well trod historical debate. Benny Morris is definitely a liberal: he has co-signed letters calling Israeli occupation "apartheid," and while he has now adopted a relatively unique "It happened but it was good" stance he definitely did not come to that stance originally and he remains on the left today. Again, the burden of proof lies on the claimants. It is not accepted that Israeli archives support the Nakba claims: as the article you link to itself notes, actual expulsion orders were listed as merely the 6th most important factor (out of 11) in explaining Arab flight, after factors such as psychological operations, Arab orders and proximity to conflict, and were limited to unique circumstances, such as Lod, where the IDF ordered Arab inhabitants to leave after (having surrendered the previous day) they opened fire and attacked Israeli soldiers in breach of prior agreement, and even then only because of Lod's strategic location and the inability of the IDF to hold the city otherwise.

Benny Morris is on the left only in the Israeli contest. In reality he's a Zionist hardliner like the vast majority of Israelis. There's no reason whatsoever to believe that his views of history are colored by anti-Israeli attitudes. As for the burden of proof, now that ample evidence for the expulsion has been provided, it's up to the detractors to refute it. And as your post demonstrates, they've been singularly unsuccessful in doing so. To deny the ethnic cleansing you're glaringly ignoring the three most important reasons for the expulsion, even according to Israeli sources: "1. Direct, hostile Jewish [ Haganah/IDF ] operations against Arab settlements; 2: The effect of our [Haganah/IDF] hostile operations against nearby [Arab] settlements... (... especially the fall of large neighbouring centers). 3. Operation of [Jewish] dissidents [ Irgun Tzvai Leumi and Lohamei Herut Yisrael]" to instead focus only on the fourth most important reason. Of course, objective research would certainly not put Arab actions in fourth place, since they've found plenty of direct expulsion orders. For example, during operation Hiram in the Galilee, few Palestinians fled spontaneously (knowing they'd be unable to return if they did so) and yet at least 100 thousand fled after the Israel military was given express orders to "quickly purge (!) the conquered territories of all hostile elements". Morris estimates that just 5% of the exodus was caused by Arab actions.

As to your final point, it is not true that refusing the return of those who have voluntarily fled (continuing your hypothetical) constitutes ethnic cleansing. For example, Croatia has not allowed Serbs who fled following Operation Storm to return, but no one, not even the Serbian government, has argued that this is ethnic cleansing: there is some debate over whether Operation Storm itself did, but no one disputes that if the Serbs voluntarily fled it was not ethnic cleansing to block their return.

Of course it's true. The definition of ethnic cleansing is removing the "wrong" ethnicity from a region. Whether that happens actively or passively (relatively speaking, since denying people the right to return still often involves violence), the ultimate result is exactly the same. And you've picked a bad example to deny this, since in fact the Serbs definitely consider Operation Storm ethnic cleansing. And they're not the only one - for example, Carl Bildt, who could hardly be accused of pro-Serbian feelings, called it "the most efficient ethnic cleansing we've seen in the Balkans". Furthermore, Croatia which does deny that Operation Storm was ethnic cleansing, used precisely the claim that they weren't stopping the Serbs from returning (at least in theory) to prove so. And all international organization involved in Yugoslavia have been adamant that all displaced persons (including Serbs from Croatia) had the right to return, recognizing that denying that right would effectively legitimize the ethnic cleansing carried out.

2. Sure it can. Also, those claims are in no way dubious, but that's besides the point. Bosnia-Herzegovina has for decades denied Serbs self-determination under the justification of national security with the full support of the international community (including the US): this is widely accepted because, like in Israel, it is accepted that Serb self-determination could lead to genocide within the Serb areas and could threaten Bosnian national security. In my view, this is actually pretty unjustifiable: I don't think there's much reason to think the Serbs would commit genocide within their territories, let alone attack Bosnia proper, but that only strengthens the point vis a vis Israel, because it suggests that even if Israel were not reasonably concerned (as it is) about Palestinian attacks on Israel itself, it would still have the right to deny self-determination if it was afraid that an independent Palestinian state would expel Israeli settlers.

This example is completely irrelevant in the context of the Israel/Palestine conflict. The Bosnian Serbs don't have the right of independence, but they're full citizens of Bosnia (with considerable autonomy), which is of course not true for the Palestinians in the Palestinian territories. The general consensus is that a group's right of self-determination can yield to the right of states to territorial integrity if these groups have genuine representation within that country. However, in the cases of dependent territories - regions ruled by a country without the inhabitants having any say in that country's government, the right of self-determination is considered absolute. An obvious example would be colonies, but this is very much the case with the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel as well, not withstanding the limited autonomy given to the Palestinians.

You are right that it would be unjustified bigotry to blame all Palestinians for the actions of militants, which is why I don't, and why most supporters of Israel don't. But it's reasonable to note that on a continuum of popular support for terrorism ranging from Northern Irish Catholic support for the IRA to Democratic support for the Weathermen, Palestinian support for Hamas is much closer (if not exceeding) to the former than the latter. More importantly, it is reasonable to note that every single major Palestinian political faction supports genocide against Jews in Judea and Samaria, and that most openly support further attacks upon Israel even after establishing a state (and probably all, depending on your belief in Fatah's honesty.)

Again a terrible comparison. The Northern Ireland conflict was solved by creating a power sharing system, with the political arm of IRA becoming part of the government, furthermore giving Northern Ireland the right to leave the UK on popular demand, so the terrorists and their supporters were in fact rewarded. By the same logic, Palestinians deserve at least their own state, if not joint rule with the Israelis in a one state solution. Instead, they don't even have the rights that Catholics in Northern Ireland had, when even as a discriminated minority they were British citizens. And similar comparisons can be made with other conflicts - the general consensus is that both sides in the conflict must have some representation, regardless of the violence engaged by either side. Certainly in no other conflict has there been any outside support for the idea that because of terrorism by some of their people, an entire ethnic groups deserves to be treated indefinitely as a virtual colony. This conflict is really the only one where collective punishment is still considered acceptable by respectable organizations.

The claim about the Palestinians wanting to genocide the Jews in the West Bank is also false. The consistent demand has been always for their removal - which is entirely justified under international law. Nor do potential further claims by Palestinians invalidate their right to self-determination, since even individuals can't be punished for wanting to potentially carry out crimes, let alone entire ethnic groups.

3. Israel will probably one day annex the West Bank for the same reason it has annexed Jerusalem and the Golan Heights: to bind them into the Israeli state and make it impossible for a future government (probably a left wing one, but not necessarily: Sharon was a right winger) or difficult for an international coalition to force Israel to cede the territory.

Despite your fervent support for Israel, you understand the Israeli people little if you think so. Israeli society is obsessed with the demographic danger and the threat of Israel losing its Jewish majority. Most Israelis think Israel has too many Palestinians as it is. For example, even before this war nearly half of Jewish Israelis wanted to expel the Arabs from Israel. Consider how even a supposed liberal like Benny Morris lamented that not all Arabs were expelled in 1948. The idea that Israelis would accept millions of additional Palestinians as citizens is completely inconceivable.

PS: I didn't see that Haley/Ryan was banned until I posted my reply. Still, I think the post is worth keeping, since the arguments raise by Haley/Ryan are all too common and popular despite how fallacious they are.